6: Video encoding
Results with night vision may vary.
With products such as Microsoft's Windows Media Center operating system and the video-capable iTunes 7, a computer's ability to encode video will only become more important. That said, we suggest you pay extra attention to these video-encoding scores if you're building a PC with any intent to integrate it into your home entertainment scheme.
Intel made its most competitive showing on our video-encoding test. AMD still wins the round, but the difference is not as pronounced as it is on other tests. The Athlon 64 X2 4800+ takes its familiar perch atop the performance chart, and both it and the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ stand out from the pack in a noticeable way. The processors in the middle of the performance scale, however, are so close that they're statistically tied, with less than 4 seconds and 2 percentage points between the Pentium D 840 and the Athlon 64 X2 4200+. Perhaps we should no longer be surprised that AMD's midrange chips compete well with Intel's higher-end CPUs, but that AMD's dual-core CPUs have maintained such a consistent streak of high performance should impress even the most adamant of Intel apologists.
Winner: AMD
7: Price vs. performance
Which CPU has the most juice per dollar?
Our price-vs.-performance chart shows just how much performance you're getting per dollar spent. We based our price figures on the suggested prices from each company, but that strategy has a caveat: For AMD, the X2-series chips have per-individual-unit pricing, which you can read for yourself here. Intel, on the other hand, provides only a suggested equivalent price of a chip as if it was purchased in a 1,000-unit lot. And of course both of those listings are estimates of what you'll really find in the market, so while we used the vendor-provided figures for the sake of consistency,we suggest you shop around.
Given the provided prices then, it's plain that Intel can afford to put its 80 percent market share to good advantage, at least with the low-end chips that most people are likely to purchase. At a suggested price of $241, the Pentium D 820 chip is the least expensive of the bunch. But while lower is generally better on such a scale, keep in mind the balance between the two ratings. The best bang for the buck in our minds is the $507 AMD Athlon 64 XS 4400+, which beat the $530 Intel Pentium D 840 on five of our six tests. And on the high end, the $803 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ is the decisive winner, easily taking out the $999 Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840 (which, incidentally, we couldn't find for less than $1,029).
Winner: AMD
SOURCE: http://reviews.cnet.com
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